Tuesday, June 30, 2015

It's time once again for the Watcher's Council's 'Weasel Of The Week' nominations, where we pick our choices to compete for the award of the famed Golden Weasel to a public figure who particularly deserves to be slimed and mocked for his or her dastardly deeds during the week. Every Tuesday morning, tune in for the Weasel of the Week nominations!

Here are this weeks' nominees....

Legal Surgeon, Amateur Legislator and Chief Justice John Roberts!

The Noisy Room :Justice John Roberts for his judicial activism on King v. Burwell and the ultimate betrayal with his ruling in favor of Obamacare this week. The ruling stomped all over state’s rights and bent over backwards to reinterpret the Obamacare statute in favor of federal exchanges. “The somersaults of statutory interpretation they [the Justices of the Supreme Court] have performed …will be cited by litigants endlessly, to the confusion of honest jurisprudence,” concludes Justice Antonin Scalia in his dissent, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito. “And the cases will publish forever the discouraging truth that the Supreme Court of the United States favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites.”

“So it rewrites the law to make tax credits available everywhere,” he dissents. “We should start calling this law SCOTUScare.” The Court’s interpretation is “absurd,” Justice Scalia opined. And right he is. Scalia is a brilliant legal mind and he is horrified by the Leftist turn of the court. This must tear his soul apart. This was simply a political power play and one has to wonder, as I have before, if Chief Roberts has skeletons in his closet that are being used to sway his opinion.
This partisan ruling will have wide-ranging, catastrophic ramifications for America. The majority opinion states that “The combination of no tax credits and an ineffective coverage requirement could well push a State’s individual insurance market into a death spiral.” And it inevitably will. Which in turn, will usher in single-payer healthcare. It’s coming.

“It is implausible that Congress meant the Act to operate in this manner,” Justice John Roberts writes for the majority. Really? Because it looks entirely plausible to me. In fact, choreographed.
Justice Scalia notes that these Justices are “presuppos[ing] the availability of tax credits on both federal and state Exchanges.” In layman terms, that means that federal tax credits that have already been given to millions of people must continue. Along with the tax credits will come higher premiums, crappier healthcare, death panels, higher deductibles and part-time employment as the national norm.

This is tyranny and what you are seeing here is the dissolution of the three branches of constitutional government we are based upon. We now have one executive behemoth branch that is drunk with power and careening out of control, right on schedule. Justice Roberts is a treasonous weasel, whose legacy will include the ending of our Republic as we have known it.

Tzipras And the Greek Economy!!

Don Surber : The Weasel of the Week has to be the entire nation of Greece -- Mustela Tsipras

These moochers refuse to reduce their spending and in so doing, seem hellbent on bringing down the global economy. Rather than cut their welfare checks by a few drachma, they risk losing the whole thing.

The Supreme Court !!

Ask Marion:As constitutionalist Supreme Court Judge Scalia said last week, ObamaCare should now be renamed SCOTUSCare since the Court has saved the unpopular law twice. He went on to say, “Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is ‘established by the State’.” Read Scalia’s full dissent HERE.

Brit Hume’s 6/29/15 commentary for Fox News focused on supreme court judges’ practice of ruling on rights that are not actually enumerated or listed in the Constitution, nor have ever previously been considered by a Supreme Court, pointing to the gay marriage decision. Hume said, “Chief Justice Roberts got Obamacare wrong (twice) saving the law from collapse, but he surely got it right on the gay marriage ruling, at least (in part) in writing, “it had nothing to do with the Constitution”. SCOTUS Gay Marriage decision now puts religious institution tax exemptions at risk; opens the door for the same argument on Polygamy; and attacks">Christianity at its core, the left’s true target, while ignoring Islam’s attitude toward gay marriage or homosexuality.

Around a dozen Federally recognized Native American tribes will continue to ban same-sex couples from getting married on their tribal lands even after the US Supreme Court’s ruling that same-sex marriage is legal in all 50 US states. Federally recognized Native American tribes have the same powers as US states to pass laws governing the lands that fall under their reservations and they are not bound by the US Constitution, like states are, so any change on the issue will have to come from within.

Monday, June 29, 2015

Every week on Monday morning , the Council and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher's Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week's question: Is it Time To Replace The GOP? Would You Support A New Party?

The Noisy Room : I am very close to that pivot shift. The tipping point for me will be the nomination for 2016. If a true conservative does not clinch the nomination due to RINO machinations, then I will swing to a Third Party, consequences be damned. There will be those who say, if you do that, Hillary Clinton is assured the ascendency. My reply to that is if someone such as Jeb Bush is nominated, Hillary Clinton or the likes of Bernie Sanders will win anyway and we have nothing to lose anymore. I truly believe if a candidate such as Ted Cruz is forced to run on a Third Party ticket, he stands an excellent chance of winning - barring voter fraud and being assassinated by the powers-that-be.

I believe a new Civil Rights movement has just been born out of this week's Supreme Court rulings. The end of our Constitutional government is upon us with lawless rulings from the bench and the dissolution of the three branches of government into one monstrously corrupt executive behemoth. Leaders will now rise in that movement and Ted Cruz will almost certainly be one of them. He is one of the few with the stones to stand and tell it like it is. He is also a master debater and won't be silenced. I am joining with other Constitutionalists out there such as Trevor Loudon, James Simpson, Cliff Kincaid, Wild Bill, the Black Robe Regiment and many, many others calling for civil resistance. We will not comply. A third party could very well be at the forefront of the resistance. As Daniel Greenfield of Sultan Knish penned it, be the best saboteur you can be.The Independent Sentinel : I always said that I would wait until 2016 to give up on Republicans and I would prefer to do that. They are our only hope and they haven't had the majority they need to overrule Barack Obama on anything except those bills that liberals like.

Oddly, when the Democrats held power, they got what they wanted and now that they don't hold power, they get what they want. The establishment refuses to use the power of the purse. It appears that the Republican establishment is too weak-willed to fight back, think keeping their jobs is the prime objective, or maybe they are just as liberal as the Democrats.

The establishment is now punishing Conservatives who do what their constituents want over their demands. We see Mitch McConnell ripping into the Confederate flag instead of telling people that flag was a creation of the Democratic party. The list of unappealing Republican establishment responses is endless.

If they don't cut it out and if they shove a RINO down our throats, then I will join any reasonable movement to start a third party.

JoshuaPundit: I've done a lot of thinking about this one, especially as I saw the reaction from all sides to this weeks' events.

I am by no means a die hard Republican, but I am loyal to certain principles they supposedly represent. I actually hoped that after they won control of congress, we would finally see them do as they promised and uphold those principles again. But we were simply lied to.

I no longer feel it is possible to hijack or take control of the GOP. My own feeling is that this this Regime's unprecedented NSA spying and secret data collection unearthed things certain congressmen, government figures and even perhaps a Supreme Court Justice or two desperately want hidden. After all, this president has used these tactics before, and that kind of leverage would certainly account for his aggressive attitude since the midterms. Whether it's that or simple cowardice or avarice, it doesn't matter.

I also no longer see waiting around until 2016 as an option. The time to organize is now, a year and a half before the elections so that cohesive principles can be agreed on, strategy plotted out and lines of communication opened.We need to act to secure the liberty of ourselves and our prosperity, rather than once again depending on the Republican Party (or the Democrats, for that matter) to do it for us.

Doing so gives us a much larger, united seat at the table. And it provides a framework for something new and badly, badly needed.

And another thing to consider...we may need that unity and that structure before 2016. These recent decisions have quite a bit of teeth in them, and the way they're certain to be enforced by the Obama Administration is pretty clear, at least to me.

Laura Rambeau Lee,Right Reason : Those of us who actually care enough about our country to follow politics have come to the realization that both the Democrat and Republican Party no longer represent the American people. Unfortunately, while we grew up, went to work, raised our families, and pursued our personal version of the American Dream, the “trusted servants” we elected to protect our rights and interests were pursuing their own agendas. When we finally realized what was happening we got involved and worked very hard to get professed “conservative” Republicans elected, only to be bitterly disappointed once they took office.

We now know that no one, or very few, of our elected officials are working and looking out for our interests. The Democrat Party has been infiltrated with progressives bent on destroying everything that has made America great, in particular the middle class. The Republicans are no better, beholden to big corporations and bankers, also at the expense of the middle class. The government has become a massive wealth redistribution machine through the confiscatory theft of our hard earned wages via numerous tax and regulatory policies.

After last week’s Supreme Court decisions, it has become even more apparent that activist judges allow their political leanings to color their decisions instead of considering the cases before them with strict scrutiny and interpretation of the Constitution. We are no longer a nation that follows the rule of law or respects the will of the people or state’s rights.

We do need a third party and I would support one. The question is do we have enough time to turn everything around, and who would stand for us and be our voice.

Bookworm Room : To put it bluntly, I think that the Republican Party sucks eggs. It does not represent conservatives. Instead, as James Taranto long-ago said, it represents Leftists who have a slight edge on Democrats when it comes to fiscal conservativism. The GOPers are on board with every single Progressive idea -- they just think that we ought to be a little more responsible about paying as we travel down The Road to Serfdom.

Having said that, I think true conservatives lack the critical mass to create a meaningful third party, especially with a pivotal election less than a year and a half away. Moreover, in this technologically driven age, the Republican Party has the infrastructure, and that's something that can't quickly be replicated either.

What I'd like to see is a coup without the Republican Party. Not having previously been of a revolutionary frame of mind, I'm not quite sure how to go about doing this, but I would certainly begin with fighting vigorously in the Republican primaries to destroy every RINO, starting with Boehner and McConnell.

Interestingly, an idea that has been picking up more and more traction in the comments section at my own blog is the feeling that, true to his Chicago roots, Obama has been blackmailing people like Boehner, Roberts, and McConnell. Indeed, my readers feel that the prosecution against Hastert was a little warning to all three of them to toe the Obama line with both the trade deal and the Obamacare ruling.

I have to admit that this idea, crazy though it is, seems more and more feasible lately. It certainly explains a lot of the insanity going on at the highest level of Republican governance, including Trey Gowdy's peculiar inept and slow Benghazi investigation.

It was Sherlock Holmes who said when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Either that, or I'm getting even more crazy than the Leftists.

The Glittering Eye : In political science there's something called "Duverger's law". That's the observed tendency of all non-proportional representation, "first past the post" representative democracies to become two party systems. The implication is that any third party is strictly a temporary phenomenon--it won't be able to stay around long enough to gain any real influence. Add to that the reality that when the electorate is closely divided between the two surviving parties a third party tends to throw elections towards the party it is least like and you've got a pretty substantial argument against a third party.

Forty-five years ago I read a very interesting history of the New York State Conservative Party that outlined the circumstances peculiar to New York that made its creation a sensible move and articulated the party's role: to nudge the Republican Party, in New York at the time very much more liberal than it is now (remember John Lindsay?), in a direction more to its liking. Unless and until we go to a proportional representation system that's the role I'd see for any third party and I think the Tea Party is filling that role pretty effectively for the Republicans.

Ask Marion : It is absolutely time for the GOP to go, as did the Whig party, whom they replaced!

The GOP leadership has stabbed their base, as well as the American people in general, in the back and has sold out to the ruling elite, as have the Democrats. For anyone who doubts that or does not keep up with the day to day treachery in Washington, D.C. please read: The Time For Changing Is Now. The time for change ”is” now, and in order to save America and what freedoms we have left, the change must take place swiftly in the form of not a 3rd party but rather a new replacement party, nullifying the GOP.

The creation of a 3rd party while leaving the GOP in place would just weaken the ability of average Americans to fight for and win back what the Constitution gives us. A new party must replace the Republican party. It is something I have fought supporting for a long time, but the past couple of weeks have proven that we cannot wait any longer.

Wolf Howling : It is time for a lot of things. One is a complete restructuring of our completely out of control courts. Two is a requirement that no regulation pass into effect until voted on by our elected representatives As to time for a third party, under normal circumstance, the answer would be a resounding yes. The Republican hierarchy are leading the way in enacting Obama's second term agenda. Having voted Republicans into office in what was a historic wave election, they promptly rolled over and played dead. It is long past time for a third party. Our current crop of Republican congresscritters, as currently constituted, are a fifth column.

That said, we are on the knife's edge of being so far transformed by Obama and the left, that to support a third party now would be to kiss America - the America envisioned by our Founders and written into our Constitution - goodbye forever. We need to vote for the most conservative candidate - and that appears to me to be either Ted Cruz or Carly Fiorina. We then have to hope against hope that it actually makes a difference in the direction our country is headed.

Well, there you have it.

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum. And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere, and you won’t want to miss it.

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Friday, June 26, 2015

The Supreme Court today ruled to impose same sex marriage on the entire United States. Essentially, like the ObamaCare decision, it bypasses the Tenth Amendment and creates fertile ground for further attacks on Christians, Jews and religious freedom.The Court, once again, is writing legislation from the bench.

The grounds, of course, was the ever elastic 14th Amendment which has become a rich hunting ground for justices seeking 'rights' that were never in the Constitution or intended to be.

The 5-4 decision had Justices Kagen, Sotomayor, Ginsberg, Breyer and Kennedy ruling in favor. Justice Roberts ruled against, but I have it on reasonably good authority that he and Justice Kennedy arranged this beforehand so that Roberts could avoid even more severe fallout in addition to what he's already getting for rewriting ObamaCare.

Most of the press is making this seem like the majority of the states already allow homosexual marriage. The number cited is '37 states.' What they'd rather not reveal is that only three of those states voted to approve same sex marriage. In 8 states, same sex marriage was imposed by the legislature, often in defiance to the wishes of the electorate. And in the remaining 26, it was imposed by court order pending this decision,also known as lawfare.

Justice Kennedy wrote the majority opinion, saying,"The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity. The petitioners in these cases seek to find that liberty by marrying someone of the same sex and having their marriages deemed lawful on the same terms and conditions as marriages between persons of the opposite sex."

'Define and express their identity?' Where is that in the Constitution?
"These considerations lead to the conclusion that the right to marry is a fundamental right inherent in the liberty of the person, and under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment couples of the same-sex may not be deprived of that right and that liberty. The Court now holds that same-sex couples may exercise the fundamental right to marry. No longer may this liberty be denied to them. Baker v. Nelson must be and now is overruled, and the State laws challenged by Petitioners in these cases are now held invalid to the extent they exclude same-sex couples from civil marriage on the same terms and conditions as opposite sex couples." [...]

Of course, Justice Kennedy didn't actually elaborate on what 'rights' or 'terms and conditions' gay couples in civil unions are excluded from that married heterosexual couples are not, but then, this was never a civil rights issue even though its advocates invariably used that language and that stance. No CEO has ever been fired for being gay, but they've certainly have been fired merely for airing their their opposition to same sex marriage. Remember Mozilla?

Ironically, Justice Roberts based his dissent on the fact that the Court was essentially legislating from the bench!
"Petitioners make strong arguments rooted in social policy and considerations of fairness. They contend that same-sex couples should be allowed to affirm their love and commitment through marriage, just like opposite-sex couples. That position has undeniable appeal; over the past six years, voters and legislators in eleven States and the District of Columbia have revised their laws to allow marriage between two people of the same sex.

But this Court is not a legislature. Whether same-sex marriage is a good idea should be of no concern to us. Under the Constitution, judges have power to say what the law is, not what it should be…."

"Although the policy arguments for extending marriage to same-sex couples may be compelling, the legal arguments for requiring such an extension are not. The fundamental right to marry does not include a right to make a State change its definition of marriage. And a State’s decision to maintain the meaning of marriage that has persisted in every culture throughout human history can hardly be called irrational. In short, our Constitution does not enact any one theory of marriage. The people of a State are free to expand marriage to include same-sex couples, or to retain the historic definition.

"Today, however, the Court takes the extraordinary step of ordering every State to license and recognize same-sex marriage. Many people will rejoice at this decision, and I begrudge none their celebration. But for those who believe in a government of laws, not of men, the majority’s approach is deeply disheartening. "

The majority’s decision is an act of will, not legal judgment. The right it announces has no basis in the Constitution or this Court’s precedent. The majority expressly disclaims judicial “caution” and omits even a pretense of humility, openly relying on its desire to remake society according to its own “new insight” into the “nature of injustice.” Ante, at 11, 23. As a result, the Court invalidates the marriage laws of more than half the States and orders the transformation of a social institution that has formed the basis of human society for millennia, for the Kalahari Bushmen and the Han Chinese, the Carthaginians and the Aztecs. Just who do we think we are?"

Pity he didn't apply that same standard to his ObamaCare decision.

Justice Scalia, of course, went right to the heart of the matter:

"The substance of today’s decree is not of immense personal importance to me. The law can recognize as marriage whatever sexual attachments and living arrangements it wishes, and can accord them favorable civil consequences, from tax treatment to rights of inheritance. Those civil consequences—and the public approval that conferring the name of marriage evidences—can perhaps have adverse social effects, but no more adverse than the effects of many other controversial laws. So it is not of special importance to me what the law says about marriage. It is of overwhelming importance, however, who it is that rules me. Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. "

"This is a naked judicial claim to legislative—indeed, super-legislative—power; a claim fundamentally at odds with our system of government. Except as limited by a constitutional prohibition agreed to by the People, the States are free to adopt whatever laws they like, even those that offend the esteemed Justices’ “reasoned judgment.” A system of government that makes the People subordinate to a committee of nine unelected lawyers does not deserve to be called a democracy."

And Justice Alito, in his dissent hits out at what this sordid usurpation will actually be used for:

"Today’s decision usurps the constitutional right of the people to decide whether to keep or alter the traditional understanding of marriage. The decision will also have other important consequences.

It will be used to vilify Americans who are unwilling to assent to the new orthodoxy. In the course of its opinion, the majority compares traditional marriage laws to laws that denied equal treatment for African-Americans and women.The implications of this analogy will be exploited by those who are determined to stamp out every vestige of dissent.

Perhaps recognizing how its reasoning may be used, the majority attempts, toward the end of its opinion, to reassure those who oppose same-sex marriage that their rights of conscience will be protected. We will soon see whether this proves to be true. I assume that those who cling to old beliefs will be able to whisper their thoughts in the recesses of their homes, but if they repeat those views in public, they will risk being labeled as bigots and treated as such by governments, employers, and schools."

Actually,this will encompass more than merely being labeled as 'bigots.' We've already seen how bakers, photographers and florists have been heavily fined, forced out of business and deprived of their livelihood merely for politely telling homosexual couples that their religious beliefs preclude their participating in a same sex marriage ceremony.

Now, thanks to another decision the Court sneaked through that no one's writing about, this is going to be expanded to the point of making it open season on Christians, and in areas that have nothing to do with marriage..especially with the Obama Justice Department itching to slap 'dissidents' around.

How long do you think it's going to be before the same activists who hunted down bakers and photographers knock on the door of a church and demands that their wedding be held there? And sues when the clergyman refuses? Watch how those churches, synagogues and other 'bigoted' religious institutions lose their tax exempt status if they refuse to bend to the New Order.

Another effect, one which I've written about before is something same sex marriage activists are not counting on. What the SCOTUS did today was to forcibly change the very definition of marriage.

You might have noticed, and even been puzzled by the fact that while Islam opposes homosexuality more vociferously than any other religion, Muslim groups, especially Islamists been almost completely silent on the gay marriage question. And with good reason.

There is already a substantial movement to legalize polygamy - or to use the new, fashionable term, 'polyamory'. Today's ruling and what it was based on, 'defining and expressing identity' means that there is absolutely no legal basis to continue to ban it, so polygamy will undoubtedly become legal as soon as the first court challenge hits the docket. So will a lot of other things Americans can't even imagine yet.

Islamist groups like CAIR see this as a spear point for their ultimate aim, to make sharia law recognized and enforceable here in America as it already is in Britain.

So it's not just judicial tyranny, the disregarding of the Constitution and the rule of law we're talking about here. We are talking about radical changes in American life that are going to change what was a free society into something very different. ..something unrecognizable.

An attempt at gun confiscation is the next step in the agenda. Just watch.

In another 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled today on Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project that you can be held liable for housing discrimination whether or not you or anyone in your organization actually intended to discriminate.

Mere thought crimes - or as Justice Kennedy put it, “unconscious prejudice” or “stereotyping” are enough to get you sued in hiring, renting property or numerous other activities if your decision can be found to have 'disparate impact' on the favored protected groups.

This decision was deliberately left quite broad, and it's a wet dream for race pimps or 'community organizers,' not to mention predatory lawyers and the Obama Justice Department.

This nonsense has long been a part of employment law, especially in fascist progressive states like California. Asking someone about their criminal record, work history or credit can be seen as 'discriminatory' in the once Golden State, even if this might have a direct bearing on their suitability for a prospective position. Even references are a thing of the past as most employers will only confirm the person once worked there and will not disclose anything else, even if they were discharged for cause.

This is one reason many employers no longer hire employees per se, but independent contractors as needed.

Now this nonsense is going to be extended to the renting of property, extending credit and even local decisions on where to build housing. It can also be used to force property owners to rent to Section 8 tenants whether they want to or not. And again, things like credit, prior rental history or a prior criminal record don't matter provided the prospective tenant is part of one of those 'protected groups.' Somebody who's a registered sex offender wants to rent in your building, even though you have families with young children living there? Provided this person belongs to certain groups, you can be sued for your decision to rent to them or not for any reason based on 'disparate impact.'

In the actual case the SCOTUS ruled on, there's another wonderfully Kafka-esque twist. It involves a decision by the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs on the location of low-income housing, and as the dissenting opinion points out, no matter where they decide to locate it, they can be sued on the grounds of 'disparate impact' by one group or another.

The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and the results are in for this week's Watcher's Council match up.

"A republic, if you can keep it." -Benjamin Frankin

"What is euphemistically called government-corporate 'partnership' is just government coercion, political favoritism, collectivist industrial policy, and old-fashioned federal boondoggles nicely wrapped up in a bright-colored ribbon. It doesn't work." - Ronald Reagan

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves." - William Pitt, in the House of Commons November 18, 1783

This week's winning essay,Joshuapundit's The Time For Changing Is Now was my reaction to the Republican leadership's betrayal of the party's conservative base to push through ObamaTrade...and my reflection what this and similar betrayals mean.

Here's a slice:

The Republican leadership today managed to threaten or bribe enough GOP congressmen to pass something most Americans overwhelmingly did not want passed - 'Fast Track' authority, the TPA for President Obama on his top secret trade bill that mostly isn't one.

The vote was 218-208, with 28 Democrats voting for it.

The fast track authority for President Obama was originally paired with another bill called the TAA, a bogus welfare crumb for all the American workers whom will lose their jobs thanks to Obama's secret trade bill. The combination legislation was voted down last week, but the TPA fast track was shoved through on its own and now goes to the Senate.The GOP leadership has promised to put the TAA provision, which expires in September to a separate vote, which the GOP leaders have promised will be nearly simultaneous.

Oh, I'm sure it will be...after the rest of the secret trade bill gets passed. And of course, as RINO Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan, the Republican Gruppenführer for Obama's trade agenda tells us, the peasants like you and I will find out what's in it when it's passed, since on a need to know basis, we're not even on the list.

Neither is most of congress, since the administration our president told us would be "the most transparent in history' is anything but. Only a handful have actually seen it, because it's locked in a secret room and no one is allowed to take notes or photograph any of it. Based on Wikileaks and a few things Senator Jeff Sessions has said, it's pretty easy to extrapolate why Barack Obama wants this so bad, and very little of it is actually concerned about trade.

According to the draft provisions,a brand new, unelected international bureaucracy is to be formed, in which America would have the same vote as Qatar. Countries could be barred from trying to control where their citizens’ personal data is held or whether it’s accessible from outside the country.

The Healthcare Annex, according to WikiLeaks, “seeks to regulate state schemes for medicines and medical devices. It forces healthcare authorities to give big pharmaceutical companies more information about national decisions on public access to medicine, and grants corporations greater powers to challenge decisions they perceive as harmful to their interests.”

In other words, congress would no longer have sole authority to over reforming MediCare and of course, ObamaCare. And the FDA would be subject to this international bureaucracy that's being set up as well.

Immigration is a big part of this too. U.S. laws, what remains of them, would now be subject to this international agreement. It calls for special fast tracking of visas that essentially would turn ICE into a rubber stamp. If this passes, look for thousands of American jobs to be replaced by foreigners at vastly lower wages and benefits as fast as corporate America can process the paperwork. And it allows much easier fast tracking of corporate off shoring of American jobs, putting Americans in competition with workers happy to receive less than a dollar an hour in countries like Vietnam.

Of course, there are also provisions to steal billions of dollars from America's tax payers in the name of global warming as well, while driving utility costs sky high.

Even more shocking, TPA gives congress no leeway on changing any of this. No amendments are allowed, simply a yes or no vote.

Overall, it's a great plan to finish bankrupting America's middle class and subject our sovereignty to the 'international community.' No wonder this president wanted it so bad and worked so hard to push it through. None of this was possible without the fast track TPA authority. And a GOP majority House just gave it to him.

So did Senator Jeff Sessions, who is one of the few congress members who has actually seen the proposed trade bill locked in that secret room:

“It is essential that there be no misunderstanding: fast-track preapproves the formation of not only the unprecedentedly large Trans-Pacific Partnership, but an unlimited number of such agreements over the next six years,” Sessions said. “Those pacts include three of the most ambitious ever contemplated. After TPP comes the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the United States and the European Union, followed by the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA), seeking as one its goals labor mobility among more than 50 nations. Together, these three international compacts encompass three-fourths of the world’s GDP. Including the nations whose membership is being courted for after enactment, the countries involved would encompass nearly 90 percent of global GDP. Yet, through fast-track, Congress will have authorized the President to ink these deals before a page of them has been made public. Then, the Executive sends Congress ‘implementing’ legislation to change U.S. law—legislation which cannot be amended, cannot be filibustered, and will not be subjected to the Constitutional requirement for a two-thirds treaty vote.”

“According to the European Commission, the TiSA agreement—which most House and Senate members did not know about when they voted—will follow in the footsteps of the WTO’s Trade in Services Provisions, which has already inhibited the U.S. from making needed immigration changes,” Sessions said. “The European Commission says the EU ‘wants as many countries as possible to join the agreement.’ We have already seen how the EU has curtailed sovereignty in Europe; we do not want to follow in its footsteps.”

With regard to TPP, Sessions warned that America has “never seen” anything like it before—and that it’ll force the United States into a version of the European Union he calls “a new Pacific Union.”

“This nation has never seen an agreement that compares to the TPP, which forms a new Pacific Union,” Sessions said. “This is far more than a trade agreement, but creates a self-governing and self-perpetuating Commission with extraordinary implications for American workers and American sovereignty. Such a historic international regulatory Commission should never be fast-tracked, and should never be put on a path to passage until every word has been publicly scrutinized, every question answered, and every last power understood by Congress and the American people.”

This is still going to be bounced back and forth between the Senate and the House, but the fix is likely in for this colossal betrayal. We're being told that this 'free trade bill' will benefit American workers. It will not. Actually, it will cost many of them their livelihoods as visas for foreign workers to replace them at cheaper wages are rubber-stamped. One more time - this isn't primarily a trade agreement at all.

I just heard Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) trying to sell it that way on one of the talk shows, saying we didn't have trade agreement with Japan, or China, or a number of other countries. Well and good senator. What's wrong with the normal process of sending diplomats to negotiate them on a per country basis and submitting them to congress for approval as we've done in the past?

Or is it just that your corporate donors want it done this way, in stealth and secrecy? Because it isn't going to benefit the American economy so much as milk it dry for the benefit of the well connected...and of course, their servile toadies in congress.

So once again, we're faced with outright betrayal. Virtually everything the Republican Party campaigned on in 2010 and especially in 2014 was an outright lie. Instead of being 'pulled out root and branch' as Mitch McConnell told voters in 2014 in Kentucky, ObamaCare is being funded by congress and the GOP establishment is already plotting to save it in case the Supreme Court declares it unconstitutional, which it always was.

President Obama's amnesty of illegal aliens by executive order? In spite of all the rhetoric, that's being funded too. We essentially have no borders anymore, or any standardswhatsoever on whom we let stay here.

Shutting down President Obama's appointments of radical judges and federal appointees at offices like the FCC? Or his radical new racialist attorney general? Using the nuclear option, the way Harry Reid did to stop over 200 bills the house passed from even going to committee? Nothing. The GOP's congressional leaders have made sure that President Obama has gotten whatever he wanted.

Barack Obama's EPA war on coal? Same story.

And forget about congress using the power of the purse to compel the release of documents and the testimony of those involved in major scandals like Benghazi, the IRS targeting political opponents or the Clinton Foundation's dealings.

I have speculated on these pages that with all the warrentless NSA spying and data collection going on, it's quite possible this president has something juicy on key Republicans like McConnell and Boehner. Or it may be they're simply being paid off in one way or another.

In the end, it really doesn't matter. What does is the realization of this foul betrayal and to look at Tolstoy's eternal question; what then must we do?

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum. and every Tuesday morning, when we reveal the weeks' nominees for Weasel of the Week!

And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere, and you won’t want to miss it...or any of the other fantabulous Watcher's Council content.

And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that, y'know?

Thursday, June 25, 2015

As I expected, The US Supreme Court today ruled to allow nationwide subsidies on ObamaCare even though they are clearly illegal according to the law as written. The Court's long awaited decision in King v. Burwell was 6-3 for Burwell, ruling that the federal subsidies can still be paid to states that elected not to establish an exchange, a clear violation of the Tenth Amendment as well as the explicit wording of the law.

Voting with Justices Ginsberg, Sontamayor and Breyer were Justices Kennedy and Chief Justice John Roberts, whom wrote the majority opinion. While his opinion is a model of illogic and doublespeak, he at least had the honesty to admit that the Court's majority ignored the actual wording of the law itself as well as the Constitution:

“In this instance,” he wrote, “the context and structure of the act compel us to depart from what would otherwise be the most natural reading of the pertinent statutory phrase.”

This was challenging, he said, because there were “more than a few examples of inartful drafting that “does not reflect the type of care and deliberation that one might expect of such significant legislation.”

Or to translate this, the law itself is so poorly written, nonsensical and contradictory that the Supreme Court, in its wisdom had to actually rewrite it in order to continue to foist it on the American people.

Justice Roberts is frankly admitting that in this case, politics trumps not only what the law says but the Constitution. This is a classic case of what Lawyers refer to as a Stare Decisis 'because we said so' ruling. The actual wording of the law is what Roberts and his cohorts think it should be rather than what it actually is.

Justice Scalia had the right if it, as he frequently does. He read his dissent from the bench, a rare sign of profound disagreement.

In his dissent, Scalia said that we should start calling ObamaCare, “SCOTUSCare.” At the end of his dissent, Scalia wrote, “[t]he somersaults of statutory interpretation they have performed (“penalty” means tax, “further [Medicaid] payments to the State” means only incremental Medicaid payments to the State, “established by the State” means not established by the State) will be cited by litigants endlessly, to the confusion of honest jurisprudence. And the cases will publish forever the discouraging truth that the Supreme Court of the United States favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites.”

Or as Senator Ted Cruz said, if these justices want to write law rather then interpret it, "They should run for Congress."

He's exactly right. This is the second time the Supreme Court has rewritten this law, not to mention the times this president has unilaterally (and illegally, I might add) done so.

The current ruling went right to the heart of what ObamaCare is all about - reducing benefits, increasing co-pays and raising premiums sky high on the middle class to subsidize all those new migrants the president is bringing in...with, of course, exemptions for the well connected. That includes every member of the Supreme Court, their employees and their families.

Those of the middle class whom can't pay will be fined by the IRS..and those who can't afford the co-pays after paying the high premiums to avoid the fine will simply go without care.

This is so far away from the Constitution our Founders bequeathed us or even the normal standards of jurisprudence as to be ludicrous. When judges write law on the fly to suit themselves and their political agenda, then there is no justice and no law.

There are several things to take away from this that are simply self-evident truths.

The Left now noisily celebrating this should understand that this creates a precedent that can be used against them in the future in ways they won't like. Blatant disregard for justice and the law eventually comes home to roost for those whom champion it.

Second, this ruling doesn't change the basic nature of ObamaCare. It merely preserves it as a poorly written law that makes no fiscal or common sense whatsoever. Half of the exchanges are already bankrupt or headed that way, because most of those who signed up are people who are taking advantage of full subsidies and pay no premiums anyway. There's a limit to how far the fiction will stretch until it cracks.

As Europe is now finding out, you can have an immigration society or a lavish welfare state, just not both.Many of the migrants this president is bringing in are going to turn out to be net tax consumers rather than tax payers by a huge margin. States like California are already seeing this at work. Far from helping to cure the deficit, ObamaCare is now estimated to increase the long-term federal deficit by $6.2 trillion, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report.

As President Obama continues his amnesty by executive order, expect this figure to increase markedly.

Congress, of course, could still use the power of the purse to defund ObamaCare. Under the present leadership, I rate the chances of that as roughly the shy side of zero.

Why this is true is unimportant right now, although as I've speculated on these pages the unprecedented amount of spying on American citizens, the enormous amount of data collected and President Obama's past use of such weapons and tactics against his political opponents might be an answer. Apparently I'm not the only one thinking that way.

None of this matters, really. We can be outraged, justifiably so, but as I pointed out yesterday, what really is important right now is answering Tolstoy's question: what then must we do?

I've said before that America's destiny is either to reaffirm the republic our forefathers bequeathed to us or to become Rome. The powers that be have apparently decided they're fine with Rome as long as their perks and bottom line are taken care of. Unless we're prepared to go along with that as a population of pauperized serfs supporting their rule and whatever they decree, we are going to have to band together to institute massive political change using what left of our republic and our rights as citizens..before we lose those as well.

Think this over:

What principles do you stand for, and what are you not willing to compromise on?

Once again, It's time to present this week's statuette of shame, The Golden Weasel!!

Every Tuesday, the Council nominates some of the slimiest, most despicable characters in public life for some deed of evil, cowardice or corruption they’ve performed. Then we vote to single out one particular Weasel for special mention, to whom we award the statuette of shame, our special, 100% plastic Golden Weasel. This week's nominees were all disgusting but the Council has spoken and we have our winner. The envelope please....

Mentally Challenged Murderer Dylann Roof!!

Virginia Right! :I can't think of anyone more deserving of the WotW title than Dylann Roof. And I am not sure what more can be said that hasn't already been said multiple times. Roof spent about an hour in a Church praying with the Bible Class and then opened fire. I am at a loss to find words to express the feelings and emotions we all have about this act of violence.

Indeed. Mr. Roof is currently a guest of the State of South Carolina, so is unable to receive his statuette of shame today. We will attempt to deliver it to his next of kin.

Well, there it is!

Check back next Tuesday to see who next week's nominees for Weasel of the Week are!

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum, and remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere, and you won’t want to miss it...or any of the other fantabulous Watcher's Council content.

And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that, y'know?

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

If you read between the lines of the always servile AP's drivel, the new policy allows families to attempt to scrape up the ransom for their loved ones, facilitated by the creation of what the president referred to as a "Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell" to 'coordinate recovery efforts among various government agencies.' Oh, and threats of criminal prosecution against families willing to mortgage their home and empty their bank accounts to try and get their loved ones back will cease.

Shamelessly, the president said that his administration would continue to abide by the "no concessions" policy when it came to hostages, but that families "who have suffered enough" would no longer be bound by that.

Instead, our government will now have a framework to operate as a go-between and courier between kidnappers and ransom payers.

What this president just did was to legitimize the wholesale kidnapping of Americans...not just by people like ISIS or the government of Iran but by entities like the Mexican drug cartels, who can now concentrate on going after targets of lesser dollar value but in greater volume.

Who says President Obama doesn't create jobs?

This president, contrary to his supposedly high moral stance here paid millions of taxpayer dollars and released five top Taliban commanders from Guantanamo in exchange for a deserter like Bowe Bergdahl, because he wanted to for obvious reasons. Today, he announced that not only American hostages but their families are now on their own, except that fancy 'Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell' to help communicate with the kidnappers and handle the transactions of victims for cash.

I wonder how long the American people are going to continue to put up with being treated with such contempt.

Welcome to the Watcher's Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the 'sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday morning.

Council News:

You can, too! Want to see your work appear on the Watcher’s Council homepage in our weekly contest listing? Didn’t get nominated by a Council member? No worries.

To bring something to my attention, simply head over to Joshuapundit and post the title and a link to the piece you want considered along with an e-mail address (mandatory, but of course it won't be published) in the comments section no later than Monday 6PM PST in order to be considered for our honorable mention category. Then return the favor by creating a post on your site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week when it comes out on Wednesday morning

Simple, no?

It's a great way of exposing your best work to Watcher’s Council readers and Council members while grabbing the increased traffic and notoriety. And how good is that, eh?

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

It's time once again for the Watcher's Council's 'Weasel Of The Week' nominations, where we pick our choices to compete for the award of the famed Golden Weasel to a public figure who particularly deserves to be slimed and mocked for his or her dastardly deeds during the week. Every Tuesday morning, tune in for the Weasel of the Week nominations!

Here are this weeks' nominees....

Race Pimp And MSNBC Common Tater Michael Dyson!

The Noisy Room : Michael Dyson for taking a cheap shot at Clarence Thomas by comparing him to Rachel Dolezal. This is a case of situational blackness. Black social justice activists have forever accused white people of cultural appropriation and trying to ‘be black.’ Claiming that they could not possibly understand what it was to be an oppressed minority. Now when it suits them, they’re all for some delusional white chick ‘being black.’ Michelle Malkin gets it stunningly right when she calls them trans-racial hoaxers and pretendians. It has very little to do with race and everything to do with a political agenda.

From IJReview:

On Monday, host Ed Schultz asked MSNBC contributor Michael Eric Dyson to share his opinion surrounding the story of Rachel Dolezal, a Caucasian woman who was posing as an African American NAACP leader.

Dyson said:

“Yeah, it’s striking to me that her parents want her to pledge fidelity and loyalty to her true roots.

You know, but what Rachel has suggested, is that she has embraced an African-American culture, a black identity, that seems counter to what her parents desire…

It means that she may not be African-American, but she certainly could be black in a cultural sense. She’s taking on the ideas, the identities, the struggles. She’s identified with them. I bet a lot more black people would support Rachel Dolezal than would support say Clarence Thomas.”

Michael Dyson is a racist hack, who on any given day, has an audience of about two. He uses race as his weapon of choice to justify his Marxist goals, bludgeoning whomever he perceives as the du jour threat of the day. Thus, in his mind, viewing Rudy Giuliani as a white supremacist is somehow rational and sane. Which is blatantly ridiculous and he knows it. He also takes every opportunity to bash Clarence Thomas, who is a steadfast conservative. It’s not his race that Dyson objects to, it’s his political stance. Dyson and the Progressive’s position on Dolezal is an insult to blacks and I don’t blame them for being embarrassed. The whole thing is one big lie of convenience. The idiot is white, not black and Dyson is a Marxist weasel, not a journalist. But what did you expect from MSNBC?

Sports Icon, Racialist And Islamist Apologist Kareem-Abdul Jabbar!

Don Surber: When it comes to bitter, rich old men who have turned on the nation of their birth who made them a multi-millionaire celebrity, few match author Stephen King or actor Sean Penn. But the king of such haters is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar whose poison pen appears regularly in Time magazine. His utter contempt for his own race as well as whites -- he has long been a racist -- was nearly humorous as he defended the contemptible Rachel Dolezal.

Mentally Challenged Murderer Dylann Roof!!

Virginia Right! :I can't think of anyone more deserving of the WotW title than Dylann Roof. And I am not sure what more can be said that hasn't already been said multiple times. Roof spent about an hour in a Church praying with the Bible Class and then opened fire. I am at a loss to find words to express the feelings and emotions we all have about this act of violence.

Sista Solove, Race Hatin' Whatever!

The Independent Sentinel : Outside the Mother Emmanuel American Methodist Church, Crazy lady Sista Solove complained to Breitbart Texas Managing Director Brandon Darby about the "white devil" and "white privilege". She also called for a race war. She referred to him as a "cracka".

She said “these n–as better get off their knees and stop praying to white Jesus”, because “white Jesus ain’t gonna save nobody”. She said that in the aftermath of the Charleston massacre of 9 innocent religious people gunned down in a church.

Everyone is expressing love and joining together, white and black, and this dingbat is calling for a race war.

Well, there it is. What a despicable group of Weasels...ANY OF THEM COULD WIN! Check back Thursday to see which Weasel walks off with the statuette of shame!

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum.

And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere, and you won’t want to miss it...or any of the other fantabulous Watcher's Council content.

And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that, y'know?

Monday, June 22, 2015

Once again, It's time to present this week's statuette of shame, The Golden Weasel!!

Every Tuesday, the Council nominates some of the slimiest, most despicable characters in public life for some deed of evil, cowardice or corruption they’ve performed. Then we vote to single out one particular Weasel for special mention, to whom we award the statuette of shame, our special, 100% plastic Golden Weasel. This week's nominees were all disgusting but the Council has spoken and we have our winner. The envelope please....

And it's not just blacks, either. I once had a client at a Fortune Five Hundred company with blond hair, blue eyes and a distinctly non-Hispanic name who benefited from a large corporation's diversity and affirmative action diktats simply because she claimed to be Puerto Rican. No one ever asked for any proof. This woman had never been to Puerto Rico, had no discernible accent and was so non-Hispanic that she pronounced the Spanish word for chicken, pollo, like the game polo rather than correctly, and the name Jose as 'Josie.' Yet she was smart enough to realize that simply checking the right box was worth money and special treatment she had no reason to bother to earn.

Miss Dolezal made the same discovery, and decided to make a career out of being a grievance monger. Now normally, I wouldn't like to see someone like this get a Golden Weasel, because ultimately she failed. That was until I saw a number of responses on Twitter and elsewhere willing to give her honorary victim status as a black simply because she was down for the struggle, as it were. Which of course, is the kind of Weaselness we celebrate with this award.

I have a feeling she might have a word or two to say to Rachel Donezal, don't you? And I bet some of her neighbors do too.

Well, there it is!

Check back next Tuesday to see who next week's nominees for Weasel of the Week are!

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum, and remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere, and you won’t want to miss it...or any of the other fantabulous Watcher's Council content.

And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that, y'know?

Every week on Monday morning , the Council and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher's Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week's question: What Are Some Of Your Favorite Jokes?

Wolf Howling :An order of friars in a small town in N.Y. needed to make repairs to their belfry but did not have sufficient funds. They decided to open up a florist shop to raise the money. Word soon got out and their business venture became a huge success, as many customers not only appreciated their fine service, but also liked the idea of supporting a religious order with their business. But not everyone was happy with this turn of events. The owner of a rival flower shop paid who had seen half his business lost to the friars paid them a visit to ask them to get out of the business. He begged, he pleaded, he even offered to pay for the new belfry himself, but the friars refused. Consequently, the rival florist hired, Hugh McTavish, a local thug with a terrifying reputation, to visit the friars and strong arm them into closing their business. And that is what he did. Hugh McTavish went to the friars, told them if they did not get out of the business he would start breaking bones, then he trashed the shop and left. Consequently, the friars closed their business.

The moral of the story: Hugh, and only Hugh, can prevent florist friars.

--------------------

Earlier this month, Hillary walked into her private office to plan out her election strategy when, in a burst of light, Satan appeared before her. Hillary literally fell out of her chair she was so frightened. She was about to scream for the Secret Service, when Satan said, "There is no need to scream. I am not hear to harm you, Mrs. Clinton. Please, sit down. I am hear to help you."

Hillary, recovered from her initial, sits down and eyes Satan warily. "What do you mean, help me?"

"You wish to become the first woman President of the United States, yes?"

Hillary nods cautiously.

"Well," says Satan, "if you continue on your current path unaided, you will never be elected. You have simply too many scandals, too few accomplishments, and the United States has suffered too much over the past six years of Democrat rule."

"No, this can't be," exclaims Hillary.

"It's true," says Satan. "I wish it were otherwise. But, if you allow me, I can help you. I can make sure you are elected President in 2016. Now, before you ask, let me say, my help is not free."

"So what will you want," asks Hillary.

"I'll require souls, of course. Souls to join me in everlasting damnation. And since this will be such a big job, I will need not just your soul, but also the souls of your family, everyone who campaigns for you, and the souls of everyone who votes for you."

Hillary looks troubled as she thinks for a moment, She shakes her head and says "I don't get it. Where is the catch?"

----------------------------------------------

A woman of forty decided to visit a plastic surgeon for a face lift. The doctor told her about this brand new procedure he had just developed.

"What we'll do," the doctor said, "is plant a small knob on the back of your head. Every few years, you can just reach back and tighten it. This will draw up you skin and give you the effect of a brand new face lift. It should keep you from having to go repeatedly into surgery every few years."

The woman decides to undergo this new procedure and is quite pleased with the results. The doctor hears nothing more from the woman for fifteen years. Then she shows up in his office one day.

The woman says to the doctor, "All these years, that little knob worked fine. Every year or so I would just reach back and give myself a new facelift. But it's not working anymore. First of all, look at these huge bags I have under my eyes."

The doctor says to her "Ummm, ma'am, those are your breasts."

The woman looks surprised for a moment, then says "well, I guess that explains the goatee."

----------------------------------------------------

A woman went to her doctor for a follow-up visit after the doctor had prescribed testosterone for her. She was a little worried about some of the side effects she was experiencing.

A woman received a call that her daughter was sick. She stopped by the pharmacy to get medication, got back to her car and found that she had locked her keys inside.

The woman found an old rusty coat hanger left on the ground. She looked at it and said "I don't know how to use this."

She bowed her head and asked God to send her help.

Within 5 minutes a beat up old motorcycle pulled up. The rider was a bearded man who was wearing an old biker skull rag. The man got off of his cycle and asked if he could help.

She said: "Yes, my daughter is sick. I’ve locked my keys in my car. I must get home. Please, can you use this hanger to unlock my car?"

He said "Sure." He walked over to the car, and in less than a minute the car was open.

She hugged the man and through tears said "Thank You SO Much! You are a very nice man."

The man replied "Lady, I am NOT a nice man. I just got out of PRISON yesterday. I was in prison for car theft."

The woman hugged the man again sobbing: "Oh, thank you God! You even sent me a Professional!"

The Glittering Eye :Over the years I've posted quite a few of my favorite jokes at The Glittering Eye. For example, there are several Christmas jokes and the only Hanukkah joke I know in this post. Here's one I don't think I've posted before. It's not a joke so much as an amusing anecdote. When I first heard it the chap telling it swore it happened to him. It's Irish dialect humor (like a lot of my favorite jokes) and that's tricky to transcribe so bear with me.

A man landed at Shannon Airport and was surprised to see two clocks on the wall, one reading "10:00" and the other "10:10". He buttonholed one of the passing Irishmen and asked him "Why do those two clocks have different times?" The Irishman thought for a moment and then said "Now what would be the p'int of havin' two clocks an' they bot' read the shame toime?"

I've gotten started so I'll tell you another. Every night Pat staggered home from the pub at midnight. His wife, Bridget, could hear him stumbling through the kitchen until he reached the sink where he threw up noisily. One night she thought she'd teach him a lesson. She put a bucket of hog's intestines into the sink and waited, shivering with laughter, until her drunken husband returned home. Sure enough, she heard him fumbling at the lock, staggering into the kitchen, and then, unexpectedly, there was a long silence. Finally, Pat shuffled into the kitchen saying "Sure but I had the froight o' me loife until I got t'em back down."

JoshuaPundit : Two of the first jokes I remember hearing had a sci-fi meme. Here's the one I feel I can tell while keeping this SFW:

An alien space ship came to earth, and needless to say the scientists went crazy. They and the alien team spent days sharing data of culture, anatomy, technology, what have you. Finally one of the aliens said One thing we're in confusion about is how you reproduce."

The earth scientists tried for over two hours, but they couldn't get the concept across, Finally one of them looked at his assistant and said, "Miss Jones, this is a unique opportunity for science. Would you mind joining me in a demonstration so the aliens can see for themselves what we're talking about?"

She agreed, they disrobed and proceeded to go at it together on a handy lab table. The aliens were very excited by this, and finally one of them asked, "What happens next?"

The earth scientist replied, "Well, if my sperm cell and her eggs interact, in 9 months we have a human baby."

The aliens were very perplexed, and after talking among themselves, one of them said, "One question. If it takes 9 months, why were you two in such a hurry at the end?"
***********

A rabbi died and went to his eternal reward. He noticed a group of Angels singing and dancing as they escorted a man into Heaven ahead of him, and one of the Angels actually asked him to step aside so they could proceed. Afterwards, an Angel came up to the rabbi and escorted him in without ceremony.

The rabbi said to the Angel, "You know, I'm not complaining, but I am a rabbi, and the man who went in ahead of me was just an Egged bus driver" (Egged is one of the two major Israeli bus companies).

The Angel replied, "Well rabbi, it's like this. Your preaching, well, it mostly put people to sleep. But let me tell you, every time that guy drove his bus you never saw such praying."

*********

My father was a workaholic. Whenever people mentioned work, he started drinking (swiped from Rodney Dangerfield and who knows who else!)
******

Virginia Right! : Next time you think your hotel bill is too high you might want to consider this... A husband and wife are traveling by car from Key West to Boston. After almost twenty-four hours on the road, they're too tired to continue, and they decide to stop for a rest.

They stop at a nice hotel and take a room, but they only plan to sleep for four hours and then get back on the road. When they check out four hours later, the desk clerk hands them a bill for $350. The man explodes and demands to know why the charge is so high. He tells the clerk although it's a nice hotel, the rooms certainly aren't worth $350. When the clerk tells him $350 is the standard rate, the man insists on speaking to the Manager. The Manager appears, listens to the man, and then explains that the hotel has an Olympic-sized pool and a huge conference center that were available for the husband and wife to use.

"But we didn't use them," the man complains. "Well, they are here, and you could have," explains the Manager.

He goes on to explain they could have taken in one of the shows for which the hotel is famous. "The best entertainers from New York, Hollywood and Las Vegas perform here," the Manager says.

"But we didn't go to any of those shows, "complains the man again.

"Well, we have them, and you could have," the Manager replies.

No matter what facility the Manager mentions, the man replies, "But we didn't t use it!" The Manager is unmoved, and eventually the man gives up and agrees to pay.

He writes a check and gives it to the Manager. The Manager is surprised when he looks at the check. "But sir," he says, this check is only made out for $50." "That's correct," says the man. "I charged you $300 for sleeping with my wife." "But I didn't!" exclaims the Manager.

"Well, too bad," the man replies. "She was here and you could have.

Well, there you have it.

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum. And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere, and you won’t want to miss it.

And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter..’cause we’re cool like that, y'know?